Poetry: Usha Akella

Usha Akella

 

I TAKE THIS BODY AS AN ORCHARD OF PAIN

(Villanelle)

I take this body as an orchard of pain,

Do not rearrange the stars, recast my lines,

This body I take as my soul’s marked terrain.

Not the bruising betrayal like that of Cain,

These braised branches are storytelling of mine,

I take this folklore as an orchard of pain.

These laboring lungs, butterflies in the rain,

These brittle bones holding high like upright vines,

This body, I take as my soul’s marked terrain.

That which strives in spite of strife do not arraign,

Imperfect symmetry is Nature’s design,

I take this body as an orchard of pain.

These knots’ gnarled circuitry still remains unchained,

I ascend unseen in searing spirals aligned,

This body, I take as my soul’s marked terrain.

In this battered artwork still a divine strain,

As the crystal cup that holds the aging wine,

I take this body as an orchard of pain,

This body, I take as my soul’s marked terrain.

Villanelle: A villanelle is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet repeated alternately until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines.

These knots’ gnarled circuitry still remain unchained

I ascend unseen in searing spirals aligned (12s): 

Refers to the concept of the soul’s evolution as a spiral 

***

A SHAKESPEAREAN POSSIBILITY

(Englyn Penfyr) 

Shakespearean possibility met-

Web enthralled with light, lightly

shawls the bramble so barely. 

Exquisite! Quivering strands on fingers

of twigs in a dance. Whose hand 

is this? Can they understand? 

Witness, the alligator oak climbing,

Cloaked face seeming to stoke 

the blue to a crimson cloak. 

Build an Eiffel tower of light, applaud

pure transcendence spider knight!

Watch the twilight weave the night.

Englyn Penfyr: Welsh. ST 

10 S/7S/7S                                                                                                                                                                                              A/A/A                                                                                                                                                                                                   1-3 S after the first line’s main rhyme are echoed in the first few syllables of the second line. Third line only reflects main rhyme.

*** 

I walk and close the door

(Italian Sonnet)

I walk and close the door this night-

A house of heavy dreams and wakeless torture

Delayed courage, delayed joy, delayed valor,

(Now! Shut the coffin, cascade into sight!)

Delayed aloneness, delayed, delayed light,

I take my tattered and true signature,

Kept women in the talons of culture,

Walk someday, walk willingly into night.

I know sour may ferment to sweet again

Reverse the heart, re-sequence the stars,

Refill the scalloped heart of the dove,

Molten fig from a chrysalis of pain,

Some stars are someone’s forgotten scars,

One-crutched glory, go on! Go now! Free Love!

***

Khamboji

(Italian Sonnet: abbaabba cde cde)

Across the river of air, a trembling of sounds,

One voice aged with the secret of song,

Ancient flight of the eagle home-bound.

The receiving voice is a young doe bright-eyed,

New blood, new vistas, new gleam,

The lifting of a new butterfly in flight.

A musical phrase repeats, repeats the ridges of note,

The gently insistence of perfection, the coaxing of a phrase,

Thus pass the rites of affection, the elder the young dotes.

Such sacred gifts are worthier than brilliant gems,

From heart-to-heart the blood’s heirlooms,

The flowing of sap from the trunk to newer stems.

***

Madingley Hall

(Ghazal)

Plop! The road is corked open at the threshold to Madingley,

Goblets of graves raise a manifold toast to the entering at Madingley.

Clouds punting in parks of somber green, somnolent season,

Node, lode, burnished lobe, open the pores of Madingley.

Coral tongues of brick incant green chants in the cold embrace of air,

Aren’t we sold to the ancient currency of leaves in Madingley.

In the ashen cerulean black birds boldly arch their script,

Corridors slough their skin inside the old mind of Madingley.

Weeping willows graciously bow to the black gown of night,

Larvae of accents transit in the moldy air of Madingley.

Coppiced hazel, purple leaf plum, liquid amber, thuya retell stories,

The black walnut is flickers of gold in the setting sun of Madingley.

Inside the harlequin passport of windows, newly stamped visas of faces,

Nascent poets dare cross the old quadrant maddeningly in Madingley.

Ghazal:

Radif: Refrain-Madingley

Matla: First couplet of the ghazal. 

Maqta: Poet uses ‘poet’ as an emblem of self-identification instead of her name in the last couplet.

Beher: line length needs to be constant; not followed in this ghazal. 

Qaafiyaa: Rhyming pattern of words: threshold/manifold/cold/sold/boldly/old/hold/mouldy

***

Bio: Usha Akella has authored ten books that include poetry, and two musical dramas. Her latest poetry book I will not bear you sons, was published by Spinifex, Australia. The Waiting published by India’s Academy of Letters, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi was translated by Elsa Cross in Spanish and published by Mantis Editores, Mexico. She edited and conceived Hum Aiseich Bolte! This is just how we speak, a poetry anthology on the city of Hyderabad released at HLF 2023. A festschrift, A house of words, in honor of Keki Daruwalla is due in 2024 from the Akademi.

She earned an MSt. in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK.  She is the founder of Matwaala (www.matwaala.com), launched to increase the visibility of South Asian poets, and www.the-pov.com, a website of curated interviews. She was selected as one of the Creative Ambassadors for the city of Austin in 2019 & 2015. She is widely anthologized, and has been invited to numerous international poetry festivals, and by prestigious venues/hosts such as the Ministry of Arts and Letters, Mexico (2023); House of Lords (2016 organized by Yogesh Patel) etc..

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Setu, January 2025